New Twitter CEO, Unrest in Pakistan, Texas Power Struggle
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Twitter is getting a new boss. Elon Musk announced he's hired a former NBCUniversal executive to be the new CEO. What kind of changes could that mean for the company? Stay with us to find out. I'm Scott Simon. I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News. ♪

Will the new Twitter leader lure advertisers back to the platform? Also, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is released on bail after being arrested on corruption charges. We ask him about his arrest, which sparked widespread protests.

The head of the biggest party in Pakistan is treated like a terrorist. And those images go, then who is responsible for what happens after that? And in Texas, state lawmakers are doubling down on fossil fuels. So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

Twitter has been through it since Elon Musk took over. Advertisers have left, hate speech is on the rise, and more than 80% of employees were laid off or left.

With a new CEO, will the social media platform make a comeback? NPR Tech correspondent Dara Kerr joins us now. Dara, thanks for being with us. Hello. Mr. Musk announced yesterday he's hired an ad exec from NBCUniversal and says she will focus on business operations.

What do we know about her? Yeah, so her name is Linda Iaccarino, and she's had a long and conventional career in advertising, from Turner Broadcasting to NBCUniversal. And at NBC, she rose to be the head of all global advertising. She's known for her savvy and behind-the-scenes power brokering. And by choosing Iaccarino, Musk is signaling that he's looking to placate Twitter's advertisers. They've fled the sites over the past few months.

And Iaccarino also appears to be a Musk super fan. I took a look through her Twitter profile and saw that she often likes his tweets and mentions him in posts. Last month, she interviewed Musk on stage at an advertising event in Miami. And during that interview, you can hear some of her praise. It's widely known that in the morning, you run SpaceX. In the afternoon, you head to Tesla. And in the evening, it's Twitter time.

And many of you in this room know me and you know I pride myself on my work ethic. But buddy, I met my match. So, Darryl, can we anticipate that Elon Musk will be less active on Twitter? Not necessarily. He said he's staying on as executive chairman and chief technology officer. He'll still oversee product and software, which is the major part of Twitter's business. He'll also still be the sole owner of the company.

I asked Joellen Posner, an associate professor of management at Santa Clara University, how much of a change there could be at Twitter with Yaccarino coming on board. I always feel that with Elon Musk.

He's so unpredictable that it's really impossible to predict how things are going to play out. She said rebuilding relationships with advertisers might not be enough. Instead, Twitter needs to solve the problem that drove away the advertisers in the first place. And what is that problem? Why have advertisers left?

So since Musk took over, he said his number one focus is, quote, free speech. So in his view, that's basically letting anyone say whatever they want on the platform, whether it be white supremacists posting hate speech or Russian leaders calling to exterminate Ukraine.

And things don't seem to be changing. Just this last week, there were several news reports about gory videos surging on the site. Videos that showed mistreatment of animals and the mass shooting in Texas last weekend. And advertisers don't want to be associated with that. It's unclear if those types of posts will go away with Yaccarino coming on board. And Piers Derricker, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. Thank you.

The political crisis in Pakistan escalated this week. After the former prime minister was arrested, protests erupted around the country, some of them violent, as supporters have accused the military of abusing power. NPR's Dia Hadid has been following these events and joins us now. Hi, Dia.

Hi, Ayesha. Let's start with a bit of background. Like, tell our listeners about what happened this week. So let me just step back a tiny bit more. The former Prime Minister Imran Khan is considered Pakistan's most popular leader. And he was ousted from power last April after the army signaled it no longer supported his rule. And since then, there's been an escalating conflict between Khan and the

and the military, and that's Pakistan's most powerful institution. It's always been revered and feared.

But last week, it all escalated again after Khan accused a serving officer of masterminding what he said was an attempt on his life last November. And in response, the army warned Khan to stop making inflammatory allegations. And then he was arrested. The images were dramatic. Dozens of paramilitary forces swarmed the Islamabad High Court and they smashed into an office to arrest Khan. What was the charge that he was arrested for?

Well, ostensibly, it was surrounding a quite serious corruption case that he's embroiled in. But Khan was taken from a courthouse where he was seeking bail in that case. And so his arrest triggered protests across Pakistan. His supporters smashed and burnt down army installations. It was unprecedented. Protesters even burst through the gates of the main army headquarters. They were led by a middle-aged woman, which suggests how far the mood has shifted here against the military.

The next day, I met one of Khan's supporters. Her name is Ruhi. And she told me Pakistanis like her had always worshipped the army until they began persecuting a man who she says wants to develop Pakistan. Have a listen. That is why the anger...

totally shifted to the forces. We need to get rid of these people so we can actually see the development in Pakistan. Need to get rid of these people? This is a sentiment that's rarely openly expressed here. So what does the military say about all of this? Well, the army accuses Khan of incitement and says he's trying to push the country into civil war for political gain.

They say Khan has done to Pakistan what the country's enemies couldn't do in 75 years. And the government agrees. They say he's erratic. They cite his history of making serious claims without evidence, like when he accused the Biden administration of overthrowing his government. So where do things stand now? Like, does the military have the upper hand? No.

Not quite. The Supreme Court this week ruled that Khan's arrest was illegal. Then on Friday, another court granted Khan two weeks bail in that very corruption case he was initially arrested for. I spoke to Khan then and he escalated his allegations when I asked if there was some sort of undeclared military rule in Pakistan. Are you saying it's undeclared martial law? Yes, I think it's being run by one man, the army chief. Then hours later, he was released to a hero's welcome.

So what happens now? Well, there's a temporary reprieve, but in many ways the fight has intensified between Khan and the army. And in the backdrop of all of this is a nuclear-armed country that's being battered by climate change. The economy is unravelling. Soaring food prices have pushed millions to the verge of starvation, mostly women and children. But it appears nothing will be resolved until this conflict is settled.

That's NPR's Dia Hadid in Islamabad. Thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome, Aisha. Oil and gas are huge industries in Texas. But the state also leaves the nation in wind power. And soon, because everything is bigger in Texas, it will generate more solar power than any other state.

but state lawmakers are trying to block the growth of renewable energy. Mos Buchel has been covering this for Member Station KUT in Austin and joins us now. Good morning. Thank you. So how did Texas become a leader in renewable energy? So Texas has its own power grid. It's kind of unique that way. And for the last 20 years or so,

There's been this turf war, basically, over using fossil fuel for the grid or renewables. Each kind of energy source wants more of that grid. And wind and solar, honestly, just kind of been kicking butt. So for decades, a lot of your coal and your natural gas plants have been losing market share to renewables. But local politicians, they don't like that?

No, no, no, no. Yeah. A lot of Texas state politicians really like fossil fuels. You know, they see oil and gas is good for the economy. They don't really concern themselves much with human caused climate change. And it's definitely worth noting that a lot of them get a lot of contributions from the oil and gas industry, too. So for years, some have been trying to put the brakes on renewables. So right now, state lawmakers are meeting in Austin. And what are they trying to do?

So this time around, they're framing this as a way to fix the power grid. You remember that big blackout in Texas a couple of years ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. So everyone here does, too, still. Ever since then, policymakers have been talking about improving the grid. So what's happening now is that this debate over how to fix the grid has kind of gotten tangled up with this anti-renewable effort.

Here's Republican State Senator Phil King just the other week. He's one of the people spearheading this push. The simple solution is you've got to reduce renewables and increase dispatchable. By dispatchable here, he means natural gas power plants. They have an on and off switch, right? They're not dependent on the weather, the wind or the sun. So Phil King and others have bills that would finance natural gas plants with

Billions of public dollars, $10 billion, in fact. They have bills to limit renewable growth. One proposal would actually put a hard cap on renewable development, make no more than 50% of new energy projects renewable. There are plans to make renewable power more expensive. There are just a whole lot of bills floating around. But not everyone agrees with these bills. Like, what are lawmakers who oppose this saying? A lot of Democrats are against it. Some Republicans are also worried about the costs.

Environmental and consumer groups are calling it a big giveaway to energy companies.

You know, when you talk to energy experts, most will say we do need energy sources with that on and off switch as the state grows. What's not really clear is how much needs to be gas power plants. Joshua Rhodes is an energy researcher at the University of Texas. He says battery storage is already starting to fill this gap. It has that on and off switch, and it can take some of the super cheap electricity that comes from things like renewables and then dispatch it whenever things are tighter. The bottom line is energy.

that almost no one outside of politics says the state needs less renewable power.

So if the Texas legislature does cut renewables and fund more natural gas, what could this mean for the rest of the country? You know, the Biden administration is primed to spend billions to increase renewables, to lower carbon emissions, to fight climate change. Texas Republican lawmakers say these policies counteract that at the state level. So it wouldn't surprise me to see some of these same policies and same arguments repeated in other red states.

Moe's Buchel, energy and environment reporter at KUT in Austin. Thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure.

And that's Up First for Saturday, May 13, 2023. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Aisha Roscoe. Tomorrow on Up First, the story of how members of a Black competitive cheer team have dealt with grief, fear, and recovery. A year after 10 people, all Black, were shot and killed in a Buffalo supermarket. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Don Clyde, Lisa Lambert, Sadie Babbitts, Hedonist,

It was produced by Andrew Craig and Danny Hensel, directed by Michael Radcliffe, with engineering support from Hannah Glovna. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Our executive producer is Sarah Oliver, and our deputy managing editor is Jim Kane. And...

For more news, interviews, books, music, share entertainment, you can turn on the radio every Saturday and Sunday morning. For a weekend edition from NPR News, you can find your NPR station at stations.npr.org.